While gala celebrations continued in Kathmandu, Tengboche marked the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of Sagarmatha with a prayer ceremony on Thursday in memory of those who died on the mountain.

Edmund Hillary's son, Peter, was chief guest at the ceremony, and in a rousing speech he said development was a bit like climbing Mt Everest. "Both need dedication and teamwork, and with that nothing is impossible," Peter Hillary told a gathering of 1,000 local Sherpas and visitors.

It was a brilliantly claear day in Tengboche, with an elegantly tilted Ama Dablam looking down approvingly on the monastery. To the north, the summit of Mt Everest peeped over the Lhotse-Nuptse ridge with a plume of spindrift blowing off the summit ridge. On the south side, climbers have been waiting out high winds and may make a push on Thursday night itself when the winds are expected to ease. A Russian ascent from the north was the first climb of the 50th Anniversary day.

At the ceremony in Tengboche, the monastery's Rimpoche, who has been at the forefront of efforts to preserve the environment in the Sagarmatha National Park and to clean up the trails, thanked Edmund Hillary, his family and friends for their energy and sacrifices over the past 50 years to develop Khumbu.

"For the Sherpa community Edmund Hillary is like a caring parent," the Rimpoche said. "We pray for his good health and long life." The monastery was rebuilt after it was razed in a fire 15 years ago, and Michael Schmitz, coordinator of the Tengboche Monastery Development Project, said a visitor's centre and expanded sacred area
are being added.

The meadow outside the monastery was the venue for a traditional Sherpa dance, and the New Zealanders reciprocated by performing a Maori dance. The field is filled with tents, and a large one in the middle was the scene of a golden jubilee party to raise money for Hillary's Himalayan Trust which funds development work in the Solu Khumbu Region. After starting out with the school in Khumjung, the hospital in Khunde and the airport at Lukla, the Trust has built dozens of schools, hospitals and renovated monasteries in the region.

There has been a steady stream of summiteers coming off Mt Everest. Among them is Appa Sherpa, who was tearing down the mountain towards Lukla for a flight to Kathmandu after climbing Mt Everest for the 13th time. "The important thing is set a goal for yourself and fulfil it," Appa said, as he hurried off.

Some Sherpas voiced private misgivings about whether the competition to set records on Everest wasn't getting a bit out of hand. "This kind of competition is not healthy, it breeds antagonism and ill will," said one elderly Sherpa here. One-fourth of the 1,702 summits have been made by Sherpas, and 175 of them died on the mountain.